


we were in screaming colour

by fakeplasticlily



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Memories, Pining, Post-it Notes, frankly disgusting levels of schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakeplasticlily/pseuds/fakeplasticlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky isn’t quite sure how it happens, at first.</p><p>All he knows is this: one moment, he’s chewing leftover pizza on the couch, making his way through JARVIS’s list of must-watch sci-fi films from the last century. Then the boy on the 128-inch premium Stark-issued television screen rides his bicycle with his alien friend into the sky.</p><p>The next thing he knows: he’s standing in front of the fish bowl in the hall, and there are post-it notes stuck to at least eight different surfaces in the apartment. There’s a memory on each of them, sometimes with a year. </p><p>Or: how Bucky discovers post-it notes, makes an apple pie, and comes to discover a few more uses for post-it notes along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were in screaming colour

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be for bucky's birthday, but thanks to real life getting in the way, it ended up getting finished nearly a month too late.
> 
> all the love to [chasing_givenchy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_givenchy/pseuds/chasing_givenchy), who is probably completely sick of hearing about this fic, given the number of texts i flooded her inbox with over it. i love you and every single one of your comments. <3

Bucky isn’t quite sure how it happens, at first.

All he knows is this: one moment, he’s chewing leftover pizza on the couch, making his way through JARVIS’s list of must-watch sci-fi films from the last century. Then the boy on the 128-inch premium Stark-issued television screen rides his bicycle with his alien friend into the sky.

The next thing he knows: he’s standing in front of the fish bowl in the hall, and there are post-it notes stuck to at least eight different surfaces in the apartment. There’s a memory on each of them, sometimes with a year. 

He’s seen Pepper use them as reminders for Tony; stuck to strategic points around his usual haunts. Bucky’s seen enough of the Tower in these last months to know that there are at least a hundred fancier ways to make sure someone remembered something here, but perhaps sentimentality isn’t dead just yet, even in here. The most technologically advanced building in the world, as Tony liked to remind them often.

Bucky walks back to the living room, sits down on the couch, and waits.

*

Steve comes home in the evening.

Bucky doesn’t really know when this Tower with all its shiny surfaces and sleek contraptions and disembodied, all-knowing voices became _home_.

In the three months since they moved into Stark Tower, they’d been subjected to enough of Tony’s loud harangues about how there was no safer place in the world for Captain America to coddle his favourite ex-assassin. Five minutes into the tour of the floor that would be his and Steve’s, Bucky had grudgingly accepted it would live up to the reputation Tony would give an earful of to anyone who’d listen.

He hadn’t been expecting a home.

He hadn’t expected how hard it’d be to leave, either, the night he’d first found himself in DC at the doorstep of the man who had called him _Bucky_ and would rather die at his hand than fight him. But somehow, he’d kept ending up right there, as it kept growing easier to remember and harder to leave.

Steve comes in, face lighting up as he sees Bucky on the couch, and at times like this he knows for certain that wherever Steve is will always be home to him.

“Bucky… Hey, Bucky,” Steve says, and he can’t stop smiling. Or saying Bucky’s name, apparently.

“Hi,” says Bucky. Suddenly, he’s itching to do something with his hands, so he wraps his arms around his knees and clutches them to his chest. Metal fingers link with his flesh ones. “How was Pittsburg?”

Steve scrunches up his nose. “Sticky,” he answers, and peels some pale pink radioactive-looking goop off his shoulder. He’s still wearing his uniform, shield slung across his back. He’d probably skipped debriefing too, and come straight here.

“More aliens?” Bucky asks. He’s thought of Steve all the time while he was away, but now that he’s here, he realises suddenly that the itch in his hands—the ache to touch him—is overwhelming. It’s a new development. God, he’s missed him.

Steve nods absently, as he notices one of the post-its on the wall next to the television. “Hey, what’s this?” he murmurs, walking up to it. Bucky tries not to look like he’s watching him too closely.

Steve takes it off and looks down at it for a long moment.

“ _Summer after third grade, the bicycle_ ,” he whispers at last. “Bucky, do you remember that?”

His voice cracks on the words, and Bucky can only nod in reply. It was the kid on the bicycle with his alien friend that had triggered this particular memory, but maybe mentioning that would ruin the moment.

“Hard not to, you were being more of a punk than usual that morning,” he grunts, still watching Steve closely.

“Buck—“ Steve says weakly. He drops his shield on the floor, makes his way up to the couch and flops down next to Bucky.

“I showed you a few times, and you kept trying and falling over all morning. One time, you were—”

Kids had laughed. Stones had been thrown. Decades of being at the mercy of HYDRA couldn’t make Bucky’s muscle memory of breaking their noses any less satisfying.

“But you didn’t give up,” he goes on, grinning. “You kept getting up, even after that pair of pale twigs you called legs were covered with more Band-Aid than skin.”

Steve’s looking at him with wide eyes, so hopeful and hanging on to his every word with such rapt attention that something twists in Bucky’s chest.

“You saw the ice-cream van roll by then, and suddenly your feet were moving the right way, and off you went… You called my name,” he goes on. “‘Buck, get on, hurry!’ you cried, and I hesitated because you had enough on your plate lugging around your own ass, you didn’t need mine with it. But you wouldn’t go without me, and you’d started wobbling on the wheels as you slowed down, so I got on behind you.”

“God, Bucky,” Steve breathes.

“We rode around on that bike so much that summer,” Bucky says. They’d bought it themselves, pooling their pocket money between them. “Thanks to your skinny ass, we both fit on that thing way longer than we should’ve.”

Bucky has a feeling this is the most he’s spoken in one go since the World War, and every word is worth it for the way it makes Steve smile. There’s more of that sticky pink alien residue or whatever Steve picked up in Pittsburg on his suit, and he leans in without thinking to brush it off.

“Fuck’s sake, Rogers, I only left you alone for three days,” he says. “You’re a walking biohazard, literally.”

“Jerk.” Steve’s still smiling at him, fond and bright—too bright, and suddenly too close, and Bucky jerks back abruptly.

“Punk,” he replies quickly to cover up the awkwardness, but Steve is distracted by something on the coffee table.

It’s another one of Bucky’s post-its, stuck to the corner of the glass. Steve raises an eyebrow at him, silently seeking permission. Bucky shrugs, and he leans over at once and picks it up.

“ _Ninth grade, detention for smoking on the roof_ , _”_ he reads. “Seriously?” he says, turning to him with a grin.

Bucky shrugs. “Had to flirt a bit with old Miss Wilkins to get out early, that’s not something you forget too easily.”

Steve laughs out loud at that, slumps down against the back of the couch and rolls his head to look at Bucky. Bucky takes in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the shaking of his shoulders, the happy flush in his cheeks, the light in his blue eyes, the lazy smile playing at his lips, and thinks he wouldn’t mind trading everything he’d ever known to remember this moment forever.

Then Steve notices the note pasted to the vase next to the couch and reaches for it, leaning across Bucky.

“ _’41, Dodgers win the League_ ,” he reads once he’s settled back down, and looks at Bucky like he’s the sun.

“Nearly knocked our teeth out, we were jumping around so much,” Bucky says.

“Didn’t amount to much later, but I don’t think we’d have noticed then either way,” Steve grins. Bucky remembers how they’d felt then, in that moment, in the stands with other fans—invincible, on top of the world, like nothing could touch them.

He remembers lifting Steve up at one point during the celebrations that day, too; remembers the warmth of Steve’s body in his arms a little too well, but he doesn’t say anything about that.

*

When Steve comes back after a shower, changed into a grey shirt and loose track pants, he’s got three more notes in his hand.

 _Playing piano for the school concert, seventh grade_ , from the cabinet over the bathroom sink. _Stealing apples to give Steve’s ma so she could make her famous pie_ , from the photo frame just outside the bathroom. _Dernier’s story about that nun from Nice_ , from the side of the fish tank in the hall.

Steve sits down next to Bucky, as he towels his hair dry. “Did you remember all this while I was away?” he asks quietly.

Bucky nods. The truth is, he’d remembered some of them earlier on. All this time he’d been remembering in snatches: flashes of colour, words and motion that would fade just as suddenly as they arrived. And memories these days were like unexpected ghosts, sometimes tuning into focus and sometimes blurring out into oblivion before they acquired any real shape. 

He knows by now the memories he gets back would never really leave him again, not after surviving everything his brain had been through, so he’s not afraid of losing them. Writing them down does, however, make them feel real. Makes being a person—being Bucky Barnes—feel real. And sometimes, as he scribbles something down he remembers something new leading from there.

He realises he’s turned the apartment into the inside of his head. Coloured notes representing memories scattered haphazardly all over the mess that’s his brain. His own personal mental litter.

He wonders if Steve’s thought of it like that. That he’s literally, at this moment, wandering around inside Bucky’s head. At any rate, he looks quite possibly the happiest Bucky has seen him since 1942. 

*

Steve never questions it. 

In the days that follow, Bucky leaves post-it notes on the bathroom tiles, the cabinet above the kitchen sink, potted plants—just about anywhere within arm’s length of where he is when a new memory hit him. They come quicker and easier now, and he’s learnt to carry a wad of notes and a pen on his person at all times.

It’s especially convenient at times like when he remembers something in a dream—blinking groggily awake, he reaches out for a note on his nightstand and scribbles: _tenth grade, planning to go see The Grand Canyon with Steve one day_  onto it. They never had. He glances over; Steve’s fast asleep next to him.

They’d fallen asleep watching an episode of Pretty Little Liars, a show they had started watching thanks to a list Pepper had made them of popular media to understand young people in the twenty-first century better. Not that she had phrased it that way, but only recently they had phoned in for back-up after mistaking a group of kids at the park with what they learnt later was a _selfie stick_  for hostiles. No one had been hurt, but she’d just so happened to come by with it as a present not long after, and it hadn’t been much of a stretch. She’d been mildly concerned to find out they were actually going through with it, but it was too late to back out and they were determined to stick around till the end out of sheer spite, just to figure out who the fuck _A_ was and finally be at peace.

It’s hard to tell if it’ll happen in their lifetimes, though. Even if theirs has already technically spanned nearly ten decades.

Rolling over onto his elbows, Bucky takes a minute to watch the peaceful expression on Steve’s face, the smoothness of his brows and the steady rise and fall of his chest with every breath. He pastes the post-it to his forehead, smiles to himself as he runs his fingers gently through his hair once. Then he draws away quickly and falls back onto his pillow.

If Steve’s annoyed by any of this, he doesn’t show it. After the first hundred, Bucky expects to see the first hints of it, but he doesn’t. Not after the next hundred either, or five.

Quite the opposite, in fact: Bucky isn’t always there when Steve finds his notes, but whenever he is, he finds him reading them carefully with a smile on his face. Or blithely brushing his teeth in front of the mirror with a note stuck to his forehead.

He turns to Bucky then, and Bucky tells him everything he remembers about what he’d written down. From the summer he discovered H. G. Wells and spent devouring everything by him he could lay his hands on, to learning Dum-Dum’s poker tips: Steve doesn’t grow tired of listening to him, as mundane as the stories are sometimes.

He smiles more, too, and doesn’t look at Bucky like he could disappear any moment anymore, and listens raptly to every random little detail he remembers from their past like nothing can make him happier than Bucky’s halting, fractured memories 

The days pass like this, and the memories only keep coming thicker and faster. 

*

“Natasha loves that story,” Steve says, popping another gummy bear in his mouth.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Bet she loves the part where you and I hang off the roof of that HYDRA tank for fifteen minutes while Morita took it right out of Vienna at seventy miles an hour.”

“ _Quite a ride for a pair of fossils_ ,” Steve says, mimicking Natasha’s deadpan. “ _Must’ve been petrified_.”

“Oh, that’s _hilarious_.” Bucky takes the note from Steve’s hand, ignoring the shiver that creeps up his spine when their fingers brush. He stares down at it for a long moment, but he isn’t really looking.

“What are you thinking?” Steve asks, leaning closer till their shoulders bump into each other. _It wasn’t on purpose_ , Bucky reminds himself quickly, of course it wasn’t.

He shrugs, looking at the words he’d written down. _1943, stealing HYDRA tank with the Howling Commandos_. That had been after Zola, but the only thing he could remember of that was still the way it had felt to see Steve’s face.

He still wakes up screaming sometimes, but the memories disappear into the darkest corners of his head even as he opens his eyes, and he’s too much of a coward to chase them.

“I think there are some things I’ll never remember,” he says quietly at last. He looks fixedly down at his lap. It doesn’t feel fair that he can’t even remember killing all the people who’d died at his hands. “I should remember. It’s not—” 

“Bucky,” Steve says. His voice is low, but firm. “Their deaths are not yours to atone for. It’s lacunar amnesia, is what Bruce called it, you lose memories of specific events in response to trauma—” 

“It was my bullets they died at. My knives that ripped out their guts. Sometimes my own bare hands. Steve, there’s something dark inside me. Always was, always will be.”

Steve touches his cheek, and turns his face around to meet his. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he says, looking directly into his eyes. Steve’s always been so bright. So brilliantly, blindingly bright. “You are, and always will be the best man I’ve ever known. Do you ever blame the weapon? You blame the killer, goddamn. And you were as much of a victim as those people were.”  
  
But Bucky’s here—alive and breathing and with blood pumping through his veins and he has _Steve_ in front of him, as bright and golden as ever. And despite everything, he thinks, he’s so much luckier than a sinner like him has any right to be.

*

It’s not long till Steve takes to writing notes of his own, addressed to Bucky.

Bucky returns from the gym one evening, and directly makes for the refrigerator. Just when he reaches for the handle, he notices a lime green note stuck to the pristine white door.

He’d left a note there earlier in the day, while mixing a fruit juice and remembering cotton candy he’d shared with Steve once in those same swirling colours. But the note he’d written had been blue, and said: _Riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, eighth grade_.

This one says _Never heard you scream that loud before_ in Steve’s hand. _Neither had the twelve-year-old girls in the car behind us from the looks of it, they were quite entertained_.

Bucky huffs a laugh. He can’t help it. Then he rolls his eyes, and pulls out a pen. _Oh, it’s on_ , he thinks.

 _At least I didn’t try to stand up in the car and get nearly knocked off by the wind all the way to Europe, if it weren’t for me holding on to you_ , he writes.

 _Like you were holding on to me for any reason other than that you were scared enough to shit your pants_ , Steve writes back.

*

Sometimes, the notes aren’t memories at all.

The first time it happens, Bucky’s digging into the bottom of a Nutella jar with a spoon. There are barely a few dregs left clinging to the bottom, but Nutella cravings are a very real issue afflicting this century, as Bucky has come to recognise. The jar was half full only last night, but that was before Steve had happened to it.  
  
_Goddamn supersoldiers and their supersoldier metabolism_ , Bucky thinks darkly as he painstakingly scrapes out a microscopic amount.  
  
His phone is in his bedroom, and he's grumpy and needs to make an appropriate statement about it, so he grabs one of his post-it notes.  
  
_We need more Nutella stat, you bottomless Nutella-imbibing pit_ , he scribbles on a note. _Or you’re on dishwashing duty for the rest of the week_.  
  
He leaves the note, and stalks off into the bathroom. When he comes out an hour later, there are ten brand new Nutella jars sitting on the table. Under it there's a note that says: _Not my fault you can’t keep up, jerk._

Next morning, Steve walks in to find the ten brand new Nutella jars lying empty, and Bucky hunched over the kitchen table looking mildly green in the face.

It doesn’t end there. Not even close. Later that week, Bucky wakes up with a note stuck to his metal arm. _Got called in by Fury, don't forget to feed the fish!_

 _Where do you cut your hair_ , Bucky writes one day, and sticks the note above the dishwasher. There’s no question mark at the end of the sentence.

He goes about his day, Steve comes back from the gym, and they chat and bicker and watch a movie as usual. There’s no indication Steve had seen his note at all.  
  
When Steve has said goodnight and made his way back to his room, Bucky decides to check the place he’d stuck the note. He finds a new note stuck over his own in Steve’s handwriting.  
  
_Tony told me about a guy_ , he’s written. _Why?_  
  
Bucky can think of at least eleven different responses based on just what he thought of Steve taking fashion advice from Howard Stark’s son, but he doesn’t write anything in reply. The thought of a stranger holding scissors at his neck isn't a welcoming one.  
  
A day passes. Twenty-four hours after his last note, Steve leaves another one in the exact same spot.  
  
_I could cut your hair for you._  
  
Bucky whips out a pen. _Since when do you cut hair_ , he writes on a note, and places it over Steve’s.

But next morning Steve wakes up to find him sitting at the edge of his bed, a pair of scissors on the mattress next to him. 

Sometimes, there are conversations that are easier like this.

 _I shot you_ , he writes one day, and leaves the note on the desk in Steve’s room.

_I survived. And so did you._

_I don’t deserve to_ , he writes, but then he crosses it out. He has said that before, and every time Steve gets that look on his face that he hates; hates more than he’s ever hated himself. _I’ll try_ , he writes instead. For Steve’s sake, there’s nothing he wouldn’t try.  
  
_Thank you_ , Steve writes in reply.

Bucky doesn’t know to answer, so he doesn’t. 

*

A few weeks later, Steve pokes his head into the weapons room.

Bucky has always found something close to comforting about cleaning his weapons, even if he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be inclined to get back on the field again. Something about the familiar routine of it, perhaps. On the days everything just gets _too much_ , it’s a way to help him tune out all the thoughts crowding and warring within him these days.

The moment he senses Steve at the door, for a split second his stomach sinks in anticipation of his ultra-heightened instincts causing him to pull the gun on his lap on him. The drugs may no longer be in his system, but instincts born of years of training are harder to get rid of. He doesn’t usually forget to lock the door when he does this, though Steve has never walked in on him when he’s in here before.

He realises belatedly that the gun is lying still in his lap, and that he hadn’t felt that familiar twitch in his hands either. He glances up at Steve again. Steve’s smiling.

“Sorry about the intrusion,” he says earnestly, and really, it’s rare for him to disturb Bucky when he comes up to this room. “But I just had to—” He’s probably not even aware how widely he’s grinning as he holds up a post-it note.

Bucky flushes to the roots of his hair.

For the first time, he’d actually made a mild effort to prevent Steve from discovering it. Or delay it, at the very least. But Steve, for some reason, has taken to clean the apartment a lot of late—the notes never stay where Bucky sticks them for more than a few hours if Steve’s around.

“So. My mom’s apple pie, huh?” says Steve, still grinning. “You’re tellin’ me we could’ve been having this instead of all those half-burnt stews we shoved down our throats every evening?"

Bucky always had been a disaster at cooking. Steve, too, but at least Steve wasn’t the one who’d memorised his mom’s recipe for her famous apple pie.

Bucky gets to his feet, stomps towards the door, snatches the note from Steve's fingers and hurries out, face burning and Steve's laughter in his ears.

*

In the weeks to come, more snatches of the recipe would come to him from time to time and he’d scribble them down, glaring at Steve when he saw him floating around the apartment aferwards with a delighted expression on his face. That invariably meant he’d found a note.

He takes to Sam’s, then, when the scribbled bits of recipe acquire something of a workable shape. Sam doesn’t ask questions, has a functioning kitchen, and he won't look at Bucky like he fucking _invented_ apple pie, and that’s about as much that Bucky can ask for.

One day, Steve comes home to find an apple pie on the table, with Bucky standing next to it, arms crossed and glaring defiantly despite the flush on his face ( _annoying, annoying_ ) as though daring Steve to say another word.

He knows it isn’t even close to as good as Steve's mom's pie, but Steve takes one look at it, eye drifting up to Bucky, and walks straight to his bedroom without another word.

Five minutes later, he comes back and sits at the table, and if his eyes are suscipiciously red-rimmed Bucky doesn't say anything about it.

*

Bucky can tell by the hopeful glances Steve starts casting at him one week that one of Tony's parties is coming up. He’s never been to one of those yet, but he knows he wants nothing to do with them.

Steve knows this too, so he never mentions it. He can’t quit get rid of the hopeful puppy gazes, though; in his defence, he probably isn’t even aware he’s making them.

Bucky sighs, and takes out his pen.  
  
_Need a suit for Tony’s party or whatever_ , he sticks to Steve’s wardrobe.  
  
The effect is instantaneous: the moment Steve enters his room and sees the note, the general atmosphere of gloom around the apartment seems to change. When Bucky comes into his bedroom not long after to find a tuxedo, dress shirt and trousers lying on his bed, he swears he can hear Steve humming from the next room.  
  
Steve is waiting at the kitchen table with a glass of water in his hand when Bucky emerges from his room before the party. He stops drinking, and proceeds to look at him for a very long moment.  
  
He only stops when he realises the water from the glass is trickling steadily down his front.  
  
_You can keep this, it fits you pretty well_ , Bucky finds on a note tucked in with the outfit placed on his bed a few days later, back from the dry cleaners.  
  
This is a lie. It’s definitely too big for him. Steve should know; he hadn’t taken his eyes off him all night.

*

On one of the delicate glass sculptures in the library, Steve finds the first of many notes to come with scribbled fragments of sheet music.

There are snatches of music that he remembers more and more these days, but the one he really wants is a very specific piece. He can’t remember the composer, or when he learnt it, or why it's so important that he can play it again, but it is.

He remembers a few days later, when he pulls up a chair to the grand piano in the living room and starts tapping keys at random till he realises what he's playing is music—from muscle memory in his flesh fingers, and his metal fingers keeping up by ear.

It’s a beautiful piece—terribly intimate, and achingly, devastatingly romantic—earnest and passionate, but hopeless. In the time it takes for Steve to go completely silent in the kitchen where he’s watching dishes till something crashes to the floor, Bucky realises he’d written the music for Steve.

*

Near-tangible evidence at last that Bucky had been in love with Steve doesn’t come as a surprise to him. He can feel in his bones that he’d fall in love with Steve if he stayed the Winter Soldier, never remembering his life before the fall, or if he’d never met Steve before at all. And if he never met Steve in this lifetime, he’d still feel an aching, ever-present Steve-shaped hole in his life.

Every version of him was made to love every version of Steve, and it only feels like the most natural thing in the world.

He’s certain they never did anything, and that he never thought Steve could feel the same way at all, but this discovery colours his newer memories in ways they weren’t before.

 _Random Harvest_ _at the cinema_ , Bucky writes on a note. It was supposed to be a double date, but like so many of the girls Bucky would ask out, they ended up standing them up when they found out Steve would be there.

Bucky remembers being secretly, guiltily glad he’d have Steve to himself. It was illusorily easy to pretend he was on a real date with his best friend, putting his arm around the back of Steve’s seat and glancing over at him all the while.

Once, Steve had turned to look him, catching Bucky’s eyes on him before he could quickly avert them and play it cool. They were so very close, and Bucky’s gaze had slipped to his pink, plush lips before he could help himself, and if he just leant a little bit closer—

But he hadn’t kissed him.

Not then, nor that time they’d played hooky from school, trying to get into a pool hall to play snooker like they’d heard Willis from ninth grade did regularly with his pals. They’d been thrown out after Steve had got into a fistfight with some men inside and ended up at huddled together in an alley, out of breath and seeking shelter from the rain under Bucky’s coat.

But Bucky hadn’t kissed him that day.

Nor even that time they’d built a fort out of blankets that they were entirely too old for, either, shoulders bumping as they read comic books together all night. Or the first time they’d snuck off to the park and got drunk off whiskey stolen from Bucky’s dad’s liquor cabinet. Steve had caught him staring, all those times, and he hadn’t turned away when Bucky found himself drawing closer.

(How different would things be now if Bucky had leant in all the way?)

Bucky finds himself eager for Steve to find these notes; for any indication at all that Steve remembered what they meant.

It’s an awkward sort of flirtation, more fourth grader than ninety-nine year old supersoldier, he supposes wryly, peering across the curtain he’s hiding behind as Steve finds one of his notes inside a book. It’s nothing like the cocky, confident way he used to flirt with the girls he’d known, but then, Steve had always been different.

Steve stares at these notes for a long time, either trying to pinpoint them or in disbelief that Bucky remembered such random little moments. But every time he’ll look up after a long moment, the back of his neck pink, before glancing around a few times and stuffing the note deep inside his pocket.

Bucky flattens his back against the wall, and wonders if Steve could hear his heart beating all the way from here.

*

When Bucky wakes up on his birthday morning, he’s alone.

He fights down the quick rush of disappointment. It’s still a foreign feeling—HYDRA didn’t really consider emotions like expectation, selfishness and disappointment part of The Winter Soldier’s required skill set.

There could be tons of reasons Steve isn’t here, he tells himself. A briefing, maybe. A morning run with Sam.

(With an unexpected twinge, he can’t help thinking of all the birthdays he remembers now; each of them beginning with stones thrown at his window at the crack of dawn, Steve standing in the bushes, a grin on his face and “Happy birthday, jerk,” on his lips.)

He finds the note when he’s brushing his teeth. It’s stuck to the counter, impossible to miss.

 ** _1: March 10, 1929_** , it says in Steve’s small, neat hand.

Toothbrush dangling between his lips, Bucky flips it over. There’s nothing on the back.

Turning it around, he squints at the date. It was his 13th birthday. He remembers vague snatches of it: ice cream, a record store, and Steve.

“Not going Gone Girl on my ass now, are you Rogers?” Bucky mutters to himself. Natasha had chosen that one for their movie night last Saturday, and Steve hadn’t seemed to have nearly as strong opinions about it as Natasha had, but that was the point, right? Nick Dunne hadn’t thought _Amazing Amy_ was capable all the things she did either.

“Sergeant Barnes,” pipes up a voice behind him.

“Christ—what did I tell you about sneaking up on a guy?” Bucky grumbles, but he’s a lot better at handling JARVIS than he was when he first moved in. No small credit to the time he’d been complaining aloud about the lack of science fiction films on the television and JARVIS had interjected, offering to play him a marathon of essential sci-fi films from the last century.

Bucky’s still learning how to trust, but as far as he’s concerned, anything that plays science fiction films for him non-stop till he passes out on the couch simply _couldn’t_ be evil.

“My apologies, Sergeant Barnes. Captain Rogers informed me you were likely to make that reference. He wishes me to convey to you his assurance that—” The voice changes to a recording of Steve’s voice, quiet and amused, “I’m not about to go Gone Girl on your ass, Buck, just follow the clues.”

“I know you’re not the biggest fan of surprises these days,” he goes on, seriously. “So if you don’t want to go through with this, just give me the word. I promise you’ll only see places that you know, and meet people you know and love, and—well, someone you haven’t met yet but I’m sure you’ll want to know and love immediately.”

Bucky hesitates—it’s true about surprises, but Steve always has been different. Already his body has started to thrum with anticipation, a ghost of a feeling from when Steve would drag him into messes that he’d invariably follow him into. Fool that he is, he _wants_ to feel that way again.

(Such a fool for Steve, only Steve, always a fool for Steve.)

He bites his lip, sure that he wants to do this. And it goes without saying, but he trusts Steve with everything he has. He’s never been very good at not going along with Steve’s plans, however harebrained, anyway.

“Nah, I’m cool,” he mutters shortly. “Where’s Steve, by the way?”

“I am afraid I am not at liberty to say,” JARVIS tells him. “Happy birthday to you, Sergeant.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, and goes back to the note. He reads it a few more times.

Dates, locations, conversations—these are easy to remember, Bucky’s realised by now. The more he remembers, the easier it gets. It’s the feelings associated with them that are more deeply entrenched in him, to the point that they’re instinct, but they’re harder to pin hold of. So he’s left chasing them, desperate for every reminder of the way they made him feel—how Steve made him feel.

How Steve makes him feel, still.

He dresses quickly, jams a baseball cap over his head and makes his way downstairs. Tony had left him a selection of obscenely high-end cars at his disposal, but Bucky takes a cab instead.

He gets off at Fifth Avenue, the address rolling familiarly off his tongue even before he’s fully aware of it. Baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, he makes his way through streets his body remembers, even if his eyes take a while to catch up.

 _Earworm Records_ , the sign over the wooden door reads. Bucky closes his eyes for a moment. Then he walks over and pushes open the door with a tinkle as he steps inside.

There’s music playing from somewhere deep in the store. Bucky makes his way in slowly, running his fingers over the spines of the records.

He closes his eyes again, and the dark, dusty rows of shelves transform into polished, clean surfaces with crisp new records stacked over them, well-handled and loved, Glenn Miller playing from the gramophone, Billy waving over at them as he dusts the next row of shelves. Late morning sunlight through the gaps between the shelves, and an arm brushing by his side, frail but warm.

When Bucky opens his eyes, he’s smiling.

He realises then that his feet have carried him to a place he knows.

“Happy birthday, Buck,” Steve had grinned proudly, holding up a record.

“Steve, you didn’t have to,” Bucky had muttered, already working out in his head how much this purchase must’ve set Steve back, and narrowing down his options for a second job over the summer so he could keep discreetly replenishing Steve’s supply of inhalers.

“Bucky, please,” Steve had urged, and he’d looked so hopeful, so earnest that Bucky had sighed helplessly, knowing he didn’t stand a chance.

“God, you’re so—Just come here, you big lug,” he’d said, throwing an arm around Steve.

The memory fades, and Bucky finds himself looking down at a record. _Where The Blue Of The Night_ , by Bing Crosby. It’s lying alone on the shelf before him, and there’s a post-it note on it.

He opens it, takes it to the record player over by the window, and plays it.

 _Where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day,_  
_Someone waits for me._  
_And the gold of her crowns the blue of her eyes,  
_ _Like a halo tenderly._

The faint metallic taste in his mouth reminds him he’s been biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. It’s the one Steve had got him for that birthday, and Bucky remembers thinking of him every time he listened to it; feeling angry and confused, because why wasn’t it Jane, or Wilma, or Meg? They had golden hair and blue eyes, too, and they were _girls_ , so _why_ —

He looks around for the note that had been stuck to the cover of the record, and reads the words on it in Steve’s writing.

**_2: March 10, 1931._ **

His fifteenth birthday and the next clue in this little scavenger hunt, no doubt. Bucky frowns at it for a long moment, but no memories come to him just then.

*

Outside the record store, he finds Natasha leaning against the wall by the door.

“Hey, birthday boy,” she says, straightening up.

“Did Steve put you up to this?” Bucky demands.

Natasha nods as she approaches him, one of her rare, gentle smiles playing at her lips. “Come on Barnes,” she says, inclining her head towards the street. “I’ve only been allowed an hour.”

“Allowed?” Bucky parrots. “How many of you are in this, exactly?”

“No one you wouldn’t be thrilled to see,” Natasha assures him. “Oh, and Tony.”

Bucky gives her a look, and she bites her lip. “Look,” she says. “Steve put a lot of thought and care into planning today, you know. I know you trust him, so just—keep doing that, okay?”

Bucky doesn’t need to be reminded of that, but he appreciates it all the same. How much planning had Steve put into this, anyway? He’s so lost in thought about _fucking Steve_ and his _ridiculous fucking schemes_ that he barely notices as he’s dragged across the street, in the direction of a clothing store a few buildings down.

“Focus now,” says Natasha sweetly, bringing him back to earth. “You and I are going shopping.”

“Shopping? What for?”

“Hey, it’s your last birthday in the double digits, live a little!” Natasha smirks. “Look, I know you just want an excuse to wear Steve’s clothes, but could you just try wearing a properly fitted suit of your own to Tony’s next party for once? Trust me, you’re more likely that way to get a _lot_ more up close and personal with him than just inhaling his manly scent of apple pie and liberty, or whatever Captain America’s clothes smell like.”

“What the fuck, Nat—” Bucky splutters, face burning.

“What?” Nat shrugs innocently. “It’s not supposed to be a secret, is it?”

Bucky just looks at her incredulously.

“I mean, the way you guys look at each other?” she goes on, undeterred. “You guys couldn’t be more subtle if you screamed your undying love for each other in front of the entire—Wow, you’d think I’d get a little bit more credit for actually trying to get you in his pants, instead of pathetically mooning over—”

“I turned fifteen that year.” Suddenly, Bucky’s looking somewhere far, far away. “Steve had pneumonia earlier that year, and—” He’d wanted to scream out loud to the universe, then, that it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fucking _fair_. They hadn’t gone anywhere that day, but Steve’s present that day had come from a certain library not far from here, and Bucky knows that’s where he’s going next.  “I’ve got it,” he says, quietly, looking around at Natasha.

She waits for him. When he finally relaxes, she takes his arm, gently. “You ready to go?” she says.

Bucky really looks at her this time, seeming to come back from a million miles away. “Sorry—Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I am.”

*

Bucky looks up at the sign over the library. It’s an old red building that looks like it’s been refurbished a few times in the last century, but not any time in the last few decades.

He walks up the steps and makes his way inside.

Casting his eyes around the place on instinct, he notes three people inside, not counting the librarian. She looks up from her work as he enters, and nods curtly.

Bucky walks past the cubicles, and finds himself stopping at a section on the right. _Science fiction_ , the label over the shelves reads.

He remembers everything, then, all at once: warm afternoon light through the window, lying on his stomach on Steve’s bed with homework spread all around them. Steve sitting against the headboard, hugging his knobby knees to his chest as he reads _20,000 Leagues Under The Sea_ out loud to him.

“Christ,” he murmurs to himself, as he sees the book lying on a small table in front of the shelves. His knees feel abruptly weak. It looks ancient, but isn’t layered with dust like everything else in this library, clearly placed there only recently. He doesn’t need to look any closer to know there’s a note stuck to it.

He walks closer, and touches the book. Steve had still been recovering from pneumonia on Bucky’s birthday that year, and if he closes his eyes he thinks he can still remember the tinny voice in which he’d insisted on reading aloud to him.

He opens the book. **_3a: 10 th March, 1942, afternoon_**, the note says.

Bucky’s heart leaps to his throat. He remembers that day in its entirety like it was yesterday.

*

When Bucky steps out from the dark, cool innards of the library, the mid-afternoon sun blinds him for a moment. There are a thousand thoughts running through his brain: memories of poring over comic books, stern looks from the librarian as they stifled laughs, sharing corn chips on this very sidewalk with Steve.

He almost doesn’t notice the girl standing to the side, one foot propped against the wall she’s leaning against. She’s dressed in a sleeveless denim jacket over a white top and a denim skirt. Her dark hair is styled into a bob, framing a heart-shaped face, and she has piercing blue eyes and a straight nose.

 _Becca?_ Bucky doesn’t say, but it’s a close thing. Rebecca Barnes died seven years ago. Bucky found that out even before he remembered the sound of her laugh, the way her eyes crinkled and long earrings danced as she animatedly told stories at the dinner table. There had been a section about her in the exhibit about him at the Smithsonian.

 _Rebecca Proctor, née Barnes, passed away on October 13 th, 2008. She is survived by her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren_.

“Hi.”

Bucky stares at her. The longer he looks at her, the more she looks like Becca.

“So,” she says, fiddling with the hem of her top. Just like Becca used to. “Um, wow… Well, I’m Jacky.” Her voice is huskier than Bucky had expected. “I’m your sister’s oldest granddaughter.”

Bucky still doesn’t answer, so she bites her lip uncertainly. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry if this upset you, I’ll just lea—”

“No,” says Bucky at once. “Stay.” His own voice comes out hoarser than he’d expected too.

“There’s a café just across the street,” Jacky says. “Is that okay?”

Bucky nods.

The café is a tiny hole-in-the-wall place at the corner of the street, but Bucky is glad for it. They place their orders, and Jacky leans forward, elbows on the table. 

“I was supposed to be giving my midterms right now, actually,” she says, grinning. “Then guess who I found waiting outside my econ class the other day? Apparently it was my grandmother’s big brother’s 99th birthday next week, and Captain America had made some calls, no big deal. If I just agreed to meet you I’d be whisked off to NYC on the next flight in and I’d no longer be giving my midterms; how could a girl say no to that, you know what I mean?”

She’s still smiling, but her eyes soften. “We wanted to meet you, of course,” she goes on, quietly. “Earlier. But Cap contacted us, right after… you know, and told us in the kindest way possible that you weren’t—you weren’t ready yet. You’re really important to him,” she observes. Her clever, piercing blue eyes seem to look right through him.

“You look just like her,” Bucky blurts out. “Like Becca.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” she laughs. “I was always very close to Gran. She loved telling stories, especially about you.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “She did.”

She looks at him pensively for a moment, and then shudders suddenly. “Sorry—it’s just that you literally look young enough to date my friends,” she says, and grimaces. “Which—um, _weird_!”

 _I want to know you_ , Bucky thinks suddenly. He wants to know everything about her and her family.

 _His_ family, he corrects himself.

Their coffees arrive, and when she looks up at him, he gives her a small smile. If she’s anything like her grandmother—and Bucky has no doubt she is—she’ll understand.

*

Seventy years later, there’s still a bakery here. In fact, it looks eerily unchanged.

Deliberately channeling the old world charm of its former self, the bakery is small and quaint with red bricks, a wooden door and lace curtains at the windows. Bucky looks up at the sign. _Bun in the Oven_ , the sign over the door reads in white paint, just like it had in 1942.

“Well?” Steve had asked, bumping his elbow against Bucky’s ribs. “Are these the best cupcakes you’ve ever tasted, or what?”

“You’re settin’ the bar pretty high here, pal,” Bucky had smirked, wrapping his arm around Steve’s bony shoulders like the telegram tucked deep in his pocket wasn’t weighing him down like a ton of bricks. “Gonna have my work cut out finding a present for your next birthday.”

The truth is: Bucky wouldn’t be around for Steve’s birthday that year.

He’d been drafted, it was his birthday, he could’ve taken any girl he’d wanted home with him that night, and all he’d wanted to do was to drown himself in alcohol.

A tall, dark-haired girl emerges from behind the counter, interrupting his reverie. “Is your name Bucky?” she asks, squinting at him.

Bucky nods. She has a piercing on the corner of her lip, and a few more over her left brow.

Her face lights up. “Wow…” she breathes, “Sorry—I just, _wow_. You’re Sergeant Bucky Barnes. That’s just—” She bites her lip in embarrassment, and reaches behind the counter for something. The back of her intricately inked neck is pink.

She draws out a box of cupcakes, and gives her head an embarrassed shake as she holds it out for him. “Sorry about that,” she says in a small voice, and clears her throat. “C—Captain America left this here for you.”

Bucky stares at the cupcakes. To say they’re an upgrade from their counterparts from seventy years ago would be an understatement. The plump, fluffy cakes topped with layers of frosting, chopped nuts, multi-coloured sprinkles and zest are perfectly detailed in a way that Bucky could never have imagined cupcakes could be.

“I hope they’re okay,” the girl says, shifting from one foot to the other. “Captain America chose them, and told us to send them to Stark Tower after you’d come here. Unless you want to have them right now, in which case we have a table reserved for you right that way—”

“I’ll take them to go,” Bucky mutters, and the girl freezes abruptly and flushes, perhaps realising how much she’d been rambling.

She makes to step behind the counter to pack the box, but Bucky spots the pink note stuffed between two of the cupcakes.

“Wait,” he tells her, and reaches over to fish it out.

 ** _3b: March 10 th, 1942, evening_**, the note reads.

*

“You know, Clint wanted to switch times with me, and I’m pretty sure it was so he’d get a share of those cupcakes,” Sam tells him, peering at the box of cupcakes. Clint couldn’t make it, away on some job for Fury, but he’d sent his dog over in his stead. “Man, am I thankful for my never-pass-up-on-the-chance-for-free-food policy right now.”

“Hands off, Wilson, I’m not sharin’,” Bucky huffs, swatting his hand away.

“Barnes, you wound me,” Sam gasps theatrically, clutching his chest in mock-affront. “Does this friendship built on mutual disdain for the Yankees and Steve’s weak-ass instant coffee mean nothing to you?”

Bucky flips him the bird, and, takes out one of the cupcakes and sinks his teeth in. Then to add insult to injury, he tosses a piece for Lucky to run up and swallow in a single gulp.

The cupcake is sweet and moist and delectable as it melts in Bucky’s mouth, definitely the most delicious thing he’s tasted yet this century.

Not that that’s much of a feat, considering he’s only been aware of what’s entering his body for less than a year. Then again, Sarah Rogers’s special apple pie was worthy competition.

Sam gives him a look as he moans around the cupcake in his mouth. “Try saving that for when you meet Steve, will you?” he says. “Some of us grew up listening to stories about you, I did _not_ need to hear that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Bucky, trying not to sound too defensive. Natasha he understood, but Sam was supposed to be the nice one. “What’s Steve got to do with it? Startin’ to think you guys are usurping Steve’s plan, you and Nat—and Tony, definitely Tony—he was the mastermind, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, nah, it’s definitely all Steve,” says Sam quickly, suddenly serious. “I enjoy being alive, thank you very much, no one who does even a little would mess with Cap’s super elaborate plan for his birthday boy—”

“I’m not—”

(Just how much effort had Steve put into this to make sure his plan went smoothly?)

“I know, I know, and please don’t make me do this,” Sam groans. “You know my offer to hear you out on whatever you need to talk about still stands, any time, but offering love advice to geriatrics isn’t really my area of expertise, you know.” 

“I don’t need—” Bucky starts, but Sam swiftly steers him around the corner and points ahead.

“What,” says Bucky grumpily. The shop window in front of him has rows upon rows of stuffed toys on display. “Gonna buy me singing Valentines now?” The hype surrounding Valentines Day in the 21st century was something that had fascinated him and Steve intensely; they’d spent an entire afternoon reading up on the Internet about it.

“No, but thanks for the idea, man, might consider it for Steve’s birthday,” says Sam, looking interestedly at the cards on display. Then he waves in the direction of the door, and Bucky rolls his eyes and steps inside.

Just on the wall opposite, there are shelves from floor to ceiling filled with stuffed bears. Bears he recognised—had laughed and been teased about with Steve and the rest of the Howling Commandos, seventy years ago. Bears wearing the same blue outfit and black mask around the eyes but with the left arm grey, a detail that wasn’t there in the ones from before the war.

“Bucky Bears,” he whispers, the words rolling off his tongue before he was even aware of it.

“They started making them again a few months ago,” says Sam carefully. “Steve pulled some strings and, well. Thought you might like to have a look.”

Bucky finds himself walking over slowly, taking a bear off the shelf and staring down at it.

He notices a little boy next to him, holding a bear of his own, looking up at him from somewhere in the vicinity of his knee. He looks at his bear, and then up at Bucky again.

Bucky places his finger on his lips, mouthing “ _Shh_.” The boy nods very seriously and places his finger on his lips once before running off to his mother.

Bucky finds himself smiling as he turns back around to the display. There are quite a few empty places, and he can see boxes full of fresh stock in the corner. There are kids buying these. Kids like the tiny boy now standing with his mother in the line at the counter. 

 _Fuck it_ , he thinks. Sam was just too good at this.

Stomping off towards the counter with the bear in his arm, he drops a wad of cash far exceeding the price, and storms out without making eye contact with anyone else.

*

The cobblestones crunch under his shoes, the only sound piercing the stillness as he steps into the courtyard behind the abandoned building that was once a lively dance hall.

They’d come here on a double date after the bakery. Steve had found the telegram, and of course Bucky wouldn’t dream of letting him know that he’d rather be holing himself up in the darkest corner of a tavern somewhere instead of celebrating. This was what he’d always wanted, wasn’t it?

So Bucky had taken one of his steadier girls, Martha, and arranged for her friend Daisy to go with Steve. But Daisy had bailed, and Bucky had scoped the hall for a guy to replace him, made sure Martha hit it off with him, and tugged Steve out into the courtyard.

“You’d been looking forward to this,” Steve had told him quietly, not meeting his eyes. “You should go back.”

“Hey, last time I checked _I_ was the birthday boy, and I say I’m stayin’ right here,” Bucky had replied, bumping their shoulders together. “’Sides, Martha keeps goin’ on about how her ma wants to see a rock on her finger soon, and that’s one hint I’m not keen on takin’ up any time soon.”

“What’s so wrong with that, Bucky?” Steve had countered, almost angry. “After the war’s over, you’ll be wanting that, won’t you? A wife and kids, a nice house? You don’t need to go around humourin’ me, actin’ like some kind of goddamn martyr, you don’t need this reputation—”

Bucky had grabbed him by the collar then, snarling, “Fuck you, Rogers, you ain’t got a goddamn clue.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve had said at once, contrite. _Damn right he should be_ , Bucky had thought to himself fiercely—he’d made it quite clear to Steve in first grade that if he ever implied again Bucky was friends with him out of charity or whatever, he wouldn’t let him live it down.

Suddenly realising how many times he’d seen bullies holding Steve in exactly the same position he was, Bucky had let go at once, cursing inwardly.

“We’re at war,” he’d answered, voice sounding hollow even to himself. “What kind of gentleman leaves a girl waitin’ when he knows he’s probably never comin’ back?”

“Don’t ever say that again,” Steve had gritted out through clenched teeth. “Don’t you ever say that again, Buck, you hear me? _Not comin’ back_ ,” he’d snorted, like it was all so goddamn hilarious, but Bucky hadn’t missed the sudden hysterical panic in his eyes.

“And even if I did,” Bucky had said quietly, raising his hands placatingly, all the fight seeming to leave him as he smiled at Steve. Fierce, brave, passionate, stupid, _perfect_ Steve. “Even if I did _come back_ … Things are always gonna be complicated.”

“Not sure I follow you,” Steve had said, looking confused.

But Bucky had smiled, thumbed Steve’s cheekbone in one bold move for a moment, and not said any more.

The yard behind the abandoned dance hall is still quiet, still overgrown, and the night sky still looks the same. It wouldn’t be so hard to pretend it was 1943. But it isn’t—they’ll never be those kids again. And perhaps that’s not the worst thing in the world, Bucky finds himself thinking unexpectedly.

Because he’s here, and so is Steve, and he can see the steps where he and Steve had spent that night talking, drinking and watching the stars. There’s a book lying on it, with a note stuck to the cover.

Bucky walks up to the steps, sits down, and balances the book on his knees. **_March 10, 2015_** , the note says, in Steve’s hand. **_Happy birthday, Bucky_**.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting to see when he opens the book, but—fuck, it certainly wasn’t _that_.

On every page, one of his post-it notes with scribbled memories has been pasted, and there’s a drawing below it. Steve’s hand, unmistakably.

Fingers shaking slightly and breath caught in his chest, Bucky starts to flip the pages. From every page familiar memories burst out at him, arranged in chronological order. Cycling together with Steve, their carefree laughter brought to life in Steve’s bold, beautiful lines. Playing piano on stage, winking at the girls in the audience. Him and Steve, heads bent together over a book, rapt in discussion of what lay in outer space and what the future might look like.

The amount of detail in every sketch is so intricate, so overwhelming, so painstakingly done, that Bucky feels like he could stare at every single one of them for hours, a million times, and still find something new and wonderful about them every time.

“It’s only half full,” comes Steve’s voice from a few feet away, and Bucky whips his head up in surprise because he hadn’t noticed him approaching at all. Steve is standing in front of him with his hands in his pockets, smiling, a little nervous but pleased. “’Cause you—you’ll be coming up with more memories, and you should from now on, and maybe some new memories we make too.”

He shrugs, even as he shifts his feet nervously and his face grows redder by the second.

God, Bucky’s in love with this man.

Steve’s looking at him expectantly, his nervousness seeming to escalate every second Bucky doesn’t react. But Bucky doesn’t know where to even begin, so he goes back to flipping through the book.

Besides—he thinks back to pretty girls he’d talked into dancing with Steve seventy years ago and Peggy Carter in her red dress—Steve was always cute when he got flustered.

Sometimes, along with the drawings under the post-it notes, there’ll be things like actual tickets from the baseball game in question or a library card from 1935 _with Bucky’s name on it_. Bucky can’t even begin to think how Steve pulled this all off, can’t trust himself to speak coherently at all, so he keeps looking through it silently.

The drawings are something else.

Lightly running his fingers over a sketch of himself and Steve laughing on their bicycle, Bucky wonders if Steve’s known all this while that this was how he had always looked at him. He turns the pages, and it seems to be a recurring theme.

He reaches the note about the Dodgers game, and the drawing below it is of Bucky holding Steve up afterwards, laughing and shouting in exhilaration, looking at each other like there’s no one else in the entire universe.

He’s sure Steve had matched the expression on his own face to Bucky’s to be polite, but as for himself, that really was how he’d been looking at Steve.

“You remember that too, huh?” he says. He keeps his voice quiet, steady. The irony of him questioning Steve about something that he remembered himself, in vivid detail, doesn’t miss him.

“I—I may have taken some artistic liberty there with your face, of course,” says Steve hurriedly, and that takes Bucky by surprise. Steve’s looking anywhere but at him, casting furtive glances at the book in Bucky’s hands. “The way you, um, looked at me, for example, I just wanted to heighten the emotion—I mean, why would you be looking at me like that, right? It looks silly, I know, if you give me a day I could change—”

“Steve,” says Bucky.

Steve’s face is red. “Sorry,” he says, and clears his throat. “Sorry.”

“Draw a picture of me.”

“Oka—Wait, what?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but just do it, all right?” says Bucky. He doesn’t know where all this is coming from but suddenly it seems like the most important thing in the world that Steve _understands_. Even if Bucky still doesn’t fully understand himself. “Just sketch me right now.”

“But it’s dark,” Steve murmurs, without any real conviction. The sun has set a while ago but he’s drawn in far less, under sleeping bags in the camps they’d set up in the dead of the woods.

Finally, shoulders slumping as he admits defeat, he fishes around in his pocket for a scrap of paper and a pen. He never could really say no to something Bucky actually asked for these days. “You’d better have a good reason for this,” he mutters, as he gives Bucky’s face a quick once-over before he lowers his head to start sketching.

Bucky doesn’t miss the way he’d averted his eyes so quickly, doing his best to avoid eye contact utterly, the faint pink still colouring his cheeks. There’s something thrumming in Bucky’s veins, prickling just below the surface of his skin, telling him he’s awfully close to something huge, something that should be terrifying but feels more like coming home.

After the life he’s had, Bucky thinks he might just be up for anything.

“Here,” Steve says, shrugging as he holds out his sketch.

Bucky takes it, and looks at it for a moment. Then he places it on the scrapbook, next to the sketch of him holding Steve up after that Dodgers game. Without a word, he shoves the book at Steve.

“What am I even supposed to—“ Steve begins exasperatedly, but then his voice catches in his throat. He freezes, staring down at the two drawings. The look on Bucky’s face is near identical in both.

Eyes fixed directly on Steve, looking at him like he’s the centre of the universe.

“Do you get it now?” Bucky murmurs. He should be embarrassed by the naked affection written all over his face, but right now he just needs Steve to _see_. Dimly, he wonders if Steve can tell how fast his heart is beating.

“But I always—” Steve stutters, “Thought it was a bit of—wishful thinking, I guess, because why would you look at me like that, right—?”

“Um, that’s supposed to be my line,” Bucky counters. “Though it’s still a mystery what I see in you when even Dr. Erskine’s serum couldn’t make you any less stupid.”

“Jerk,” Steve grins his crooked, self-conscious grin, and _oh_ , Bucky’s no better, being as stupidly, stupidly in love with this reckless, passionate, ridiculous, wonderful boy as he has been, for as long as he can remember.

“Punk,” he answers.

“Well… what now, Buck?” Steve says.

What is the appropriate reaction to two supersoldiers discovering at ninety-nine that they’ve both been guilty of looking at each other like they were the centre of each other’s universe? Bucky isn’t sure, and neither, he thinks, is Steve. All he knows for sure is there’s been too much talk, too much time wasted, and he’s not about to waste another moment.

Curling his fingers around the back of Steve’s neck, he drags him in and kisses him firmly.

He feels a sharp intake of breath against his lips, and he freezes for a moment, ready to pull back at once. Then Steve makes a pained, broken sound, raises his hands to cup Bucky’s face, and kisses him back with everything he has.

It’s fierce and messy, and somehow Bucky’s wound his arms around Steve’s neck, and Steve’s hands are fisted in the back of his shirt. They press closer and closer till they physically can’t get any closer, but still not nearly as close as Bucky craves to be.

When they break apart, he can’t tell if it’s been minutes, hours or days. Steve is flushed and out of breath, lips kiss-red, and Bucky misses them already.

“Hi,” Steve grins at him, bashful but too happy to care. He’s so close Bucky could count his eyelashes. He’s always thought they were frankly absurdly pretty for a guy, but they’re even prettier up close, he registers dimly.

He runs his thumb down the back of Steve’s neck. “Thank you,” he says. It sounds woefully inadequate, after everything Steve’s done for him—not even just for today, but all this time. He looks directly into Steve’s eyes, hoping he’ll be able to read even a fraction of what he’s trying to convey through his eyes.

“That was some thank you,” Steve smiles, tucking a few errant strands of Bucky’s hair behind his ear, eyes devastatingly fond.

 _That was some birthday present_ , Bucky thinks

Then there’s a sound, and abruptly they look up together and realise there are fireworks—blinding, spectacular fireworks lighting up the whole night sky that put the Fourth of July to shame.

“Fucking Tony,” Steve laughs quietly, pressing his nose into Bucky’s hair.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, Tony and Bruce and Thor, actually. They agreed to set up these—” An image of the Grand Canyon swoops in like a three-dimensional film playing across the sky, and a million birds fly out of its depths and dissipate in every direction. “You always said it wasn’t fair that only I got to have fireworks on my birthday and never you, but I bet you didn’t think of you’d get them with Asgardian special effects,” he grins.

They stand like that, looking up at the sky for a long moment. Then from somewhere in the shadows, a song starts to play.

Slowly, Bucky turns to where it’s coming from; next to him, Steve does the same.

“Is that…” Steve says.

“ _Till the end of time,_ ” the voice croons over the faint crackle of the record,“ _‘Long as stars are in the blue, ‘long as there’s a spring of birds to sing, I’ll go on loving you_ —“

“Fucking hell, Jarvis,” Bucky mutters, before he can stop himself. His ears are burning.

“Jarvis?” Steve’s looking at him curiously, and suddenly Bucky feels very exposed. 

“I was—“ he begins, and clears his throat. “I was listening to this list of popular songs from the thirties and forties once, to see if I could recognise any and, well. This one came on, and I—I remembered it.”

He remembers the muffled strains playing from inside the dance hall that night, as they lay back on those steps in this very yard. Looking at Steve as he stared up the stars. Taking a long swig of whiskey, and asking Steve if he wanted to dance.

He wasn’t really that drunk—it was just a good excuse, and he figured he’d never get another chance anyway.

He’d been ready to laugh it off if Steve did, but he didn’t. He’d opened his mouth to speak, but Bucky had never found out what he was going to say. With a flood of light illuminating the yard, the door had opened and Martha and the boy Bucky had left her with had stumbled out, laughing.

“Bucky—Sorry,” she had said, colouring in embarrassment. Bucky couldn’t hide the look of disappointment on his face, but it was okay. No one would think it was really over missing the only chance he’d ever get to dance with the best friend he’d been in love with for most of his life.

Then he realises Steve’s entwined their fingers, and he freezes.

“I would’ve said yes, you know,” Steve says, so quiet that it’s a wonder Bucky can hear him over the music.

He looks up from their linked fingers, and Steve’s eyes are on him. They flicker down to his lips, and Bucky can’t move or breathe or think because if he just leans in a little bit more—

A burst of fireworks resounds over them, particularly loud, and on instinct they glance up at once.

In a myriad of colours, like a giant animation playing across the night sky, an image of Bucky Bear appears with a birthday cake in front of it.

“Well, this was all Bruce and Thor,” Steve says. “The imagery was probably Coulson’s idea, though. Oh man, I bet this is where Tony comes in.” 

Right on cue, the birthday cake changes into a large vessel with the word _fondue_ spelt over it. Just in case there was any confusion. An image of Steve’s shield emerges from behind Bucky Bear, and together they tip over and disappear into the metaphorical fondue. 

The _f_ in fondue is in the shape of a dick, by the way, as if to clear any doubt that Tony Stark is indeed twelve years old.

“Tony,” Steve mutters under his breath. Then he suddenly straightens up and looks around in the direction of the music. “ _Fucking_ Tony.”

Turning away from Bucky, he storms off towards it. Bucky follows him to an ancient, rusty garbage can in the corner of the yard, with a tiny set of speakers and a miniscule video camera on top of it.

Steve picks up the bug and looks directly into it. “Seriously, Tony,” he says. “Don’t you have a wild night in planned with your mirror or something?”

Then he crushes the bug in his fist. The music, however, continues to play.

“So,” he says, turning back to Bucky, smiling at him sheepishly and scratching the back of his neck, “This is about seventy-five years too late, but how ‘bout that dance?”

*

Clint knocks, but there’s no answer. He knocks again, and again. Then he breaks in. (See that, Nat? Who said he wasn’t the mature, collected one?)

Officially, he’s visiting to wish Bucky happy birthday in person. Mostly, it’s in the hope they have some of those cupcakes left.

The apartment looks empty. There’s really no indication anyone has been here at all in the last few days at least, save for the rumpled state of the couch and the broken shards of what was probably a plate under the kitchen table.

“Jarvis?” Clint calls out. "Are Cap and Barnes in?"

“Affirmative, Mr. Barton.”

Clint wait, but JARVIS doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate. “Well?” he demands, making a sweeping motion around the living room with his arm. “I don't see them around, do you?”

JARVIS pauses. It’s only for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough to be noticeable. “Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes have retired to their bedroom.”

“It’s eleven in the morning,” Clint says, amused. “And since when is it _room_ in the singular, Jarvis, are you going soft in your old age?”

“Since returning from Sergeant Barnes' birthday scavenger hunt on Wednesday night, sir,” answers JARVIS. “And they came into the kitchen at seven minutes past eight this morning, only to make their way back to the bedroom at thirty two minutes past eight.”

“Right,” Clint grins. “I know we all joke about them shacking up but—oh wait,” he says, the colour draining from his face. “You don't joke.”

“That is not quite accurate, Mr. Barton, I am known to possess a particular penchant for dry—”

Ignoring JARVIS, Clint walks up to the corridor leading to the three bedrooms. The doors to the two on either side of the corridor are ajar. Clint zeroes in on the closed door at the end of the hall.

He walks toward it slowly, full of dread but unable to stop himself, drawn along by the sheer power of morbid curiosity.

He spots the note from several feet away. For once, he wishes he were shortsighted so he could delay the inevitability of reading what it said.

Too late.

 _Stay away, we’re fucking_  says the untidy scrawl that it starts with. The _fucking_ has been crossed out, replaced by _busy_ , and the message continued in a neater, smaller hand:  _Sorry about the inconvenience! Leave a message_.

Clint doesn’t know what else he expected, but he groans nonetheless. He did _not_ need that mental picture, and he retreats back to the living room before he accidentally heard them going at it or something.

Snagging a waffle from the kitchen table that Steve and Bucky were probably feeding each other before they started making out and— _why was he picturing it again, dammit_ —he remembers the betting pool going on how long it’d take them to _do the fondue_ , as Tony called it. Everyone else had bet varying lengths of time, all between three days and a week from Steve’s frankly disgustingly romantic birthday present. Their fault for clinging to their last vestiges of faith in Captain America’s virtue, or whatever.

The last one placing his bet, Clint had bet they would be in bed by the end of the night. Thor, too, but probably only because he didn’t see Steve and Bucky as prehistoric figures from his childhood. He wasn’t exactly likely to drop by from Asgard to collect the winnings, either.

Clint pictures the others’ faces when he got to tell them, and his face cracks into a slow smirk. Perhaps today might be looking up after all.

**Author's Note:**

> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSJ-oT2ZBa0) is the song that steve and bucky dance to. utterly cheesy, and utterly them tbh.


End file.
